Anticipating Change in Your Life

The other day, one of my friends on social media posted that she was triggered the other night after watching the TV show, Highway to Heaven. The show’s sensitive storylines made her cry. She’d gone through a loss and asked...“will the tears last forever?”

“Oh yes,” I replied, … “They will come and go forever, but I like to think of them as an overflow of love rather than a trigger.”

I know exactly how she feels when the tears begin welling up in your heart, your throat, your eyes… it’s even hard to swallow… as the saying goes, “choking back the tears.” But then, if you allow, the tears will flow and it feels like such a relief… there they are… a reassuring representation of all the love you still have inside for the one you have lost.

Did you know tears' chemical makeup differs from the emotions that bring them on? I think tears of grief are meant to break through the resistance to crying and open the heart to soothing tears. As I said…An overflow of love.

Have you heard of the term “anticipatory grief?” It’s typically associated with impending loss, like when you have an elderly parent, an anticipated life change, like divorce, an empty nest, an animal who is aging out, and you know a transition is near.

Or, it might be a health diagnosis or a spouse with cancer and you don’t know how much time you have left.

I had anticipated the loss of my husband, Jim, for years. He had his cancer diagnosis 7 years ago, and it was terminal. We had a remarkable quality of life, even with cancer. We appreciated every single day, and our mantra was “We have such a wonderful life.” Because of that appreciation, we never wasted time over silly disagreements or participated in things that didn’t interest us. Life was FOR us, and we were determined to make each day something special.

But there were days I’d find myself rehearsing what it would feel like when he’d actually die. I found myself silently preparing as the years passed by. The doctors said he’d only live 2 years… but we were on year 7 simply because Jim’s will to live was so strong that we continued with new and cutting-edge treatments that bought him bits of time. But those bits of time were like gold to us.

Sometimes, though, I would find myself going in and out of grief, but then rise strong when there was the tiniest shred of hope with each new addition to his treatment…

But his cancer was never cured, only postponed, until one day we knew he only had weeks left.

He died on June 9th in our home, in such a quiet peaceful way with love surrounding him. It was just the way we planned.

Jim’s loss has been so different from the loss of my son, Garrett, at just 16. That was a tornado. There was no anticipation, no forewarning… he awoke with a fever one day and was dead the next morning. That was the hardest experience of my life. That was how I understood grief to be… torturous, unbearable, shocking. It was years of recovery to feel safe again.

But Jim’s loss was different. He was the love of my life, and there was nothing unfinished about our love. We loved each other to the fullest and had time to really tell each other everything we ever wanted to say.

In large part, I think I owe gentle grieving to anticipatory grief. I’m so glad I didn’t fight it. I just let it resonate and settle in. When the time came, grief was like a familiar old friend, and I knew I would survive.

And that’s all we can really ask for… surviving the loss of a loved one and assimilating all the love, joys, and beauty they represented into your new chapter of life.

My hope for you is that if you are anticipating a change in your life, a challenge, or a loss that you know will happen… don’t fight it. Lean into it.

Let yourself anticipate what it might feel like when that life-changing event happens and becomes real. Let yourself cry. Seek comfort in the tears. Anticipatory tears fortify your ability to move forward with life. It gives you confidence that you can cry and recover… and go about your day.

It has been 4 months since my beautiful husband died, and I still welcome the tears. They don’t stop me from learning what my new life looks like. They just remind me that I was truly loved, and my strength is stronger than I ever imagined.

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